


like a ghost

by castrumcruentus



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, M/M, after glow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 09:54:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26850016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/castrumcruentus/pseuds/castrumcruentus
Summary: It feels like something cruel is coming. Like things are coming to an end, to a close, and he can't quite figure out exactly what that means. But Matt looks peaceful, and patient, and kind when he sleeps.
Relationships: Matt | Mail Jeevas/Mello | Mihael Keehl
Comments: 12
Kudos: 32





	like a ghost

**Author's Note:**

> do not ask me what this is because i cannot tell you. i just had a lot of matt/mello feelings that needed to be put out somewhere!!!! enjoy!!!! i am haunted by the potential of their love and the way their lives are cut so short!!!!
> 
> this is just a snapshot- a moment of peace for two boys who barely know what peace is. Mello is a Cancer moon and this fic is rly just an opportunity to talk about That.

The light from the motel advertising just outside Matt’s apartment window simmered through the hazy, expired smoke that hung low and steady in the dank warmth, with a harsh but comforting redness. With no bed frame, Mello could stick slender toes out from underneath water silken sheets and drag them along the carpet, the blood rush high in his head finally melting down beneath his jaw and letting him breath again, even if the air felt heavy.

Up, and down. At least to ground himself, gripping polyester tears in the floor beneath his toes.

It was kind- thoughtful even, maybe something worse, of Matt, to always put on the soft sheets Mello liked so terribly much whenever he came over.

_You break my heart._

Matt was warm, always terribly warm. Mello wondered if it was hard, being wrapped up in so much inescapable heat- but when it was cold outside, even _he_ couldn’t fully bring himself to mind as his companion sidled up on his shoulder. Inviting, tempting, Mello to just once brush the greased tendrils from freckled, rounded cheeks. Soft cheeks of a boy, not quite yet a man, and he felt something kinder than pity when he looked upon him in the red light of that room. Mello doesn’t- not while Matt was still awake, despite cowardice an unfathomable flaw in his mental vocabulary.

The music Matt had put on from his phone was still playing tinny and baseless from the side of the bed, discarded in favour of hands on his hips that loved to explore with the restless fumbling he swore would one tragic day lose its appeal, but thankfully that day had yet to come. It’s money on the side, an added bonus to whatever chicken-shit familiarity brought him here with muffled vigour.

Matt was pathetic, in a lot of ways. In the way he didn’t know how to tidy, how to wash his clothes, how to spend time alone- even his genius was pathetic. But perhaps the most pathetic, the most egregious, was the way he remembered to put on that set of sheets before Mello came over, roughly tucking the corners under the naked mattress and onto the bare floor. Even if Mello loved to slide underneath them, the rich luxury a beaming light within the poverty that shook him by the collar with each visit to Matt’s apartment. It never got any better.

Matt shifted, moan soft as his breathing began to slow.

He was pathetic, Mello thought, in the way that Matt begged without ever asking for just a few more hours together. And in turn, Mello was equally pathetic for indulging him each and every time, sliding into familiarity on the floor of Matt’s flat to order in pizza and bicker and listen and talk about nothing in darkness.

 _To make love is to be in love._ The thought is troubling in how easy it comes.

How warm, Matt was, jaw softening against Mello’s pillow case and chapped lips resting against the pale roundness of Mello’s shoulder. They were red rimmed, now raw and bitten from the moment the door slammed shut behind him and Mello flipped his brain off. How embarrassing- how humiliating, passion would come to be.

With Matt’s silence, Mello can afford to brush the hair from his cheeks, the arm not squished tight between them coming up to move a few stray pieces from his eyes and nose. His jaw was soft- Mello had always appreciated its forgiveness, always coming back with double the power he could possibly throw at it. Overhand, never underhand, like a punch to the face.

Perhaps, that was where the craving came from. The addiction was to the pain, to the passion, and never to the boy curled into his shoulder with every guard down Mello had ever counted.

He sincerely hoped so, anyway.

_Matt looks kind like this._

Outside the window, the street was terribly loud in the late hours of the night and early hours of the morning. Even the shrill cry of an ambulance didn’t shake his companion from his sleep, succumbing to the depths with an open-mouthed inhale Mello had half a mind to find irritating.

He didn’t.

He would stay where he was, not daring to open the window, but indulging in the humiliating act of caressing Matt’s cheeks like a valuable and precious thing. The buzzing red light outside the window eased him just a little, everything outside Matt’s little apartment begging on hands and knees for him to stop despite his best efforts. He continued- if only out of spite, the engine that kept his heart going. Because he really, truly, shouldn’t.

He’s thankful Matt’s asleep, because it hurts in an eternal way- like they’ve met before a thousand times. Like he’s mirrored this exact thing, the disarming act of treating another man with physical sympathy over and over and over again.

Mello hates how comforting it is to rest his hand on the side of Matt’s neck and leave it there, with no intention of doing a single thing else.

“… Goodnight, Matt.”

He says.

It’s an apology.

**Author's Note:**

> as always u can find me on twitter @melloapologist where i am irritating!


End file.
